Bruce Rauner issued the following statement regarding the news that former campaign manager and top White House aide for President Obama David Plouffe is joining ride-sharing company Uber:

“David Plouffe’s first order of business should be to encourage Governor Pat Quinn to veto the anti-ride sharing bill pending right here in President Obama’s home state. Ride-sharing companies like Uber are exactly the type of innovative companies Illinois should be welcoming and recruiting - I know it and the President’s top people know it. Pat Quinn should know it too.”

He said some level of background checks for ride-sharing drivers “probably does make sense.” So does a certain level of insurance, though he didn’t have any coverage minimums in mind.

You want the bill vetoed, but don’t know how you’d make it better?

If a lobbyist walked into a legislator’s office with that attitude they’d be laughed out of the Statehouse.

* Basically, this is simply an attempt by Rauner to woo the younger, wealthier tech crowd in Chicago and put Quinn on the spot with that very same group. It’s not a bad move at all. I just wish he’d flesh out his position even a little bit beyond empty platitudes and sort out his contradictions.

Pat Quinn can take away my guns, raise my taxes, waste a whole bunch of money on Dorothy Brown’s husband, have 1,000s of patronage hires at IDOT, screw up every aspect of government and I would still consider him a decent dude. But the minute he takes away my ability to use an app to call a car to give me a ride at an affordable price he is done in my book.

Continually urging the veto of major bills without proposing any alternatives (e.g. state pensions, Chicago pensions, the budget, taxes, Uber) doesn’t make you look like a principled leader. It makes you look like an agent of chaos.

Bruce Rauner has given us a year-long preview of the his governing philosophy: disfunction solely for dysfunction’s sake.

I wish Rauner would point to something other than a chauffeur’s license as a reason to oppose this bill. I simple do not see how requiring this license in any way, shape or form restrains competition if the others in the same business have to get them too. Does it restrain competition because Uber is now required to follow the same rules as everyone else and, thus, they have a competitive advantage being taken away from them? If somebody can clue me in on this I would appreciate it because I simply do not see it.